Publication date: 15 May 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800084353
Number of illustrations: 81
St Peter-On-The-Wall
Landscape and heritage on the Essex coast
Johanna Dale (Editor)
The Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, built on the ruins of a Roman fort, dates from the mid-seventh century and is one of the oldest largely intact churches in England. It stands in splendid isolation on the shoreline at the mouth of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, where the land meets and interpenetrates with the sea and the sky. This book brings together contributors from across the arts, humanities and social sciences to uncover the pre-modern contexts and modern resonances of this medieval building and its landscape setting.
The impetus for this collection was the recently published designs for a new nuclear power station at Bradwell on Sea, which, if built, would have a significant impact on the chapel and its landscape setting. St Peter-on-the-Wall highlights the multiple ways in which the chapel and landscape are historically and archaeologically significant, while also drawing attention to the modern importance of Bradwell as a place of Christian worship, of sanctuary and of cultural production. In analysing the significance of the chapel and surrounding landscape over more than a thousand years, this collection additionally contributes to wider debates about the relationship between space and place, and particularly the interfaces between both medieval and modern cultures and also heritage and the natural environment.
Praise for St Peter-on-the-Wall
‘Dale has expertly marshalled a series of expert contributors to what is an attractive, wideranging and hugely informative volume. The chapter by Kevin Bruce and Christopher Thornton (Ch. 7) does a thorough job in charting the missing medieval centuries, exploring evolving lands, owners, farms and fisheries, to which St Peter-on-the-Wall will have been a quiet, neglected witness.”
Medieval Settlement Research
‘A major contribution to the historical record, and is beautifully edited, and handsomely produced. It would be great to see this book in every public library in Essex, so if you live near one do order it for their shelves.’
The New English Landscape
‘Without doubt, Johanna Dale and her contributors have amply succeeded in demonstrating the history of St Peter’s chapel and its surrounding landscape and have hinted at possible environmental threats should Bradwell B be constructed in the years ahead.’
Landscape History
‘This rich interdisciplinary volume considers the longue duree landscape of the Dengie Peninsula, Essex… Through a close and fruitful reading of the primary sources, Barbara Yorke revisits the social, political and religious circumstances of its foundation, while David Andrews’ careful analysis of the building itself distinguishes its original features from the later effects of deconstruction and reconstruction.’
Medieval Archaeology
List of figures
List of tables
List of abbreviations
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A contested landscape
Johanna Dale
Part I: St Peter’s Chapel and its pre-modern contexts
1 St Peter’s Chapel: What the building has to tell us
David Andrews
2 The Roman fort of Othona
Andrew Pearson
3 Dengie, Ythancaestir and Othona: The early medieval landscape context of St Peter-on-the-Wall
Stephen Rippon
4 Cedd, Bradwell and the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England
Barbara Yorke
5 Put to good use: The religious afterlife of the Saxon Shore forts
Richard Hoggett
6 Early medieval monasteries on the North Sea coast of Anglo-Saxon England
David Petts
7 Land, marsh and sea. Transformations in landscape and farming at Bradwell on Sea, c.1086–c.1650
Kevin Bruce and Christopher Thornton, assisted by Neil Wiffen
Part II: St Peter’s Chapel and its modern contexts
8 ‘A building of altogether exceptional interest’: The rediscovery of St Peter’s Chapel in the nineteenth century, and its restoration in the twentieth
James Bettley
9 ‘And withal a great silence’: The spiritual landscape of the Othona community and St Peter-on-the-Wall
Ken Worpole
10 A case study in vulnerability: Bradwell A, a trial environment for nuclear power Gillian Darley
11 The St Peter’s Way: Leisure, heritage and pilgrimage
Johanna Dale
12 Maldon and the Blackwater Estuary: Literature, culture and practice where river meets sea
Beth Whalley
13 The last of Essex: Contemporary architecture and cultural landscape
Charles Holland
14 Care and maintenance in perpetuity? The nuclear landscape of the Blackwater Estuary
Warren Harper and Nastassja Simensky
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781800084353
Number of illustrations: 81
Publication date: 15 May 2023
PDF ISBN: 9781800084353
EPUB ISBN: 9781800084384
Hardback ISBN: 9781800084377
Paperback ISBN: 9781800084360
Johanna Dale (Editor)
Johanna Dale is Research Fellow in the Department of History at UCL, where she previously held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her research is focused on the political and cultural history of the medieval period and her first book, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century, was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society’s Whitfield Prize in 2020. As a resident of Essex, she has a long-standing interest in the medieval heritage of the county.
‘A major contribution to the historical record, and is beautifully edited, and handsomely produced. It would be great to see this book in every public library in Essex, so if you live near one do order it for their shelves.’
The New English Landscape
‘Dale has expertly marshalled a series of expert contributors to what is an attractive, wideranging and hugely informative volume. The chapter by Kevin Bruce and Christopher Thornton (Ch. 7) does a thorough job in charting the missing medieval centuries, exploring evolving lands, owners, farms and fisheries, to which St Peter-on-the-Wall will have been a quiet, neglected witness.’ Medieval Settlement Research (MSR)
‘Without doubt, Johanna Dale and her contributors have amply succeeded in demonstrating the history of St Peter’s chapel and its surrounding landscape and have hinted at possible environmental threats should Bradwell B be constructed in the years ahead.’
Landscape History
‘This rich interdisciplinary volume considers the longue duree landscape of the Dengie Peninsula, Essex… Through a close and fruitful reading of the primary sources, Barbara Yorke revisits the social, political and religious circumstances of its foundation, while David Andrews’ careful analysis of the building itself distinguishes its original features from the later effects of deconstruction and reconstruction.’
Medieval Archaeology
Related titles
Sign up to our newsletter
Don't miss out!
Subscribe to the UCL Press newsletter for the latest open access books,
journal CfPs, news and views from our authors and much more!